Anders Behring Breivik

Anders Behring Breivik has given madness a bad name. His actions were grossly aberrant and self-evidently those of a madman.  Most lay people would instinctively agree with this but would be reluctant for him to be formally designated as mad because they believe this would reduce his culpability, primarily in the eyes of the law.  This was the dilemma facing both those professionally involved in the case of Peter Sutcliffe, with whom Breivik has much in common, and ordinary members of the public who were trying to work out what their thoughts were about him.  The majority of both groups wanted Sutcliffe, who had a mission with a similar intensity to that of Breivik’s, to be deemed fully guilty, and therefore as having full capacity and full mens rea, at the same time as being frankly mad.   In the event, he was convicted of murder, meaning he did not have the diminished responsibility which would have reduced this to manslaughter, but ended up in Broadmoor Hospital having treatment for mental illn ess. The dilemma was thus resolved serially rather than in a single decision at the end of his trial.

There are other obstacles to establishing a consensus that his actions were those of a madman.  First of all, experts, that is forensic psychiatrists and psychologists, are likely to say that is for them to decide or to provide opinion on whether he was mad at the time of the events on 22nd July 2011; that it is a highly technical matter and only they have the necessary skill and expertise to investigate it and come to a diagnosis.  They will cite their great experience in such matters and perhaps draw on DSM-IV or ICD-10, the American Psychiatric Association and World Health Organisation diagnostic manuals of mental disorder respectively.  In practice, however, they are very likely to disagree. One group, perhaps the largest, will say that he was primarily motivated by extremist or fundamentalist beliefs similar in essence to those held by the English Defence League, puritanist-Islamacist groups and so on; and that the thoroughness and effectiveness of his plans must confirm that he was not deranged. A second will attest that he has an extreme paranoid or narcissistic personality disorder, and a third that he has a paranoid psychosis – and so on.  These marked differences of opinion arise because, until all forms of mental disorder are construed and detectable as physical, organic pathologies, the subjective element in diagnosis will continue to be highly influential. That is to say, diagnosis will depend to a significant extent on the experience, special interest and even political or ideological leanings of the diagnoser.

There is in fact no cogent reason why what ought to constitute madness should be left to a narrow group of experts.  Madness is socially determined. That is to say, it is possible to imagine a society where, for example, hearing voices which instruct you to do certain things is a sign of great wisdom or imagination rather than of illness or disorder. The fact that there is general agreement throughout the developed world that such auditory, command hallucinations are usually symptoms of a mental illness, namely schizophrenia, does not invalidate this view of madness in any way, as is often claimed.  Which behaviours or experiences are held to be a symptom of disorder should be a matter for public policy, which in a democracy all citizens should be able to contribute to, perhaps especially in an ultra-democratic state such as Norway.

The second obstacle is the widespread view, already expressed by many, that seeing Breivik’s actions as mad takes attention away from the need to deal with extremism, fundamentalism and what are felt to be growing social tensions in northern Europe.  Context is seen as more important and aetiologically significant than whatever might have been going on in his mind. This preference for seeing his actions as driven primarily by perverted or distorted political or ideological beliefs rather than by some inner, pathological process is understandable. His lengthy manifesto, possible contact with extremist groupings, and electronic statements all seem to point in this direction, as does the similarity, in quality if not quantity, of his actions to recent terrorist attacks around the world.  However, people who suffer from mental disorder tend to pick up ideas, anxieties and influences which are current. Grandiose delusions these days are usually about believing oneself to be Michael Jackson or some other iconic celebrity rather than Jesus Christ or Napoleon. People with paranoid psychosis often believe they are under surveillance in their own homes by MI5 or MI6, usually via the electrical wiring or TV. Their concerns are topical rather than historical.

Breivik is slightly different from this group because his disorder is diffuse and global rather than narrow or specific. He has reached for ways of giving expression to it, channelling it and, most important of all, legitimising it.  This he did quite easily because he is intelligent, well-educated, single-minded and at ease with electronic media.  He indoctrinated himself, unlike true terrorists who are generally indoctrinated by others. Theirs is an induced madness where his is endogenous and organic.   Someone with a very similar disorder of mind to Breivik’s who was instead, say, under-educated, poor and lacking his skills, would be more likely to write rambling and vitriolic letters to his MP or local authority, or perhaps walk the street in bizarre and colourful clothes than go on an obsessively organised killing spree. Some of his actions may also have been to do with his being Norwegian – for example, getting hold of a number of guns because of a culture of hunting – but most were not. What he did was to do with being human, not Norwegian.
In a case of great complexity which will give rise to a vast number of explanations or formulations, derived from or influenced by the special or vested interests of whoever is putting them forward, one thing is virtually certain: that now Breivik is prevented from acting out his paranoid or grandiose ideas, he will quickly become incontrovertibly crazy or mentally ill.  And the less he is interrogated about or asked to explain his actions, the quicker this will happen. This is because enacting and then legitimising his ideas protected him from breakdown.  They were defensive activities which filled and stirred up the depressive vacuum or emptiness which lies at the heart of his particular disorder.  This was almost certainly to do with an intense Oedipal dynamic, sexual guilt and confusion, or frank perversion which his mission helped him cap off. The second stage of this mission was to breathe a new identity into his old identity as it shrank and began to die.  Its apocalyptic climax was a vengeful and envious attack on young people: they had to die because in a sense he was already dead.  Suicide at the end of his spree, which would have been an almost-sane act, was unnecessary because it had already happened.

The lessons from that terrifying Friday in late July have nothing to do with racist extremism or the perils of multiculturalism.  They teach us about the capacity of the human mind, once it is detached from its bedrock of identity and flattered and fed by the products of the electronic age, for breathtaking barbarism.